13. The Message
THE MESSAGE
Reign was still awake, sitting in his Hellcat outside Soreya's apartment building, trying to decide whether to go up or go home.
His phone had been buzzing with her texts for the past hour—where are you, we need to talk, please just come over—but he couldn't make himself move.
Not yet. Not when his mind was still full of Arissa Sterling's sharp eyes and sharper smile.
When Cairo's name flashed across the screen, Reign's stomach dropped.
Cairo didn't call unless it was serious.
"Yeah," Reign answered, his voice rough.
"Get to the spot." Cairo's voice was cold, controlled, but Reign could hear the edge underneath. "Now. We got a situation."
"What kind of situation?"
"The kind that mean we at war. Move."
The line went dead.
Reign stared at his phone for three seconds, then threw the Hellcat into gear and pulled out. Whatever this was, it wasn't good.
The alley off Hull Street was lit up like a crime scene—which, technically, it was.
Blue and red lights bounced off the brick walls of the buildings on either side.
Yellow tape cordoned off the narrow space between a closed corner store and one of the Saint crew's smaller club properties, a spot called Velvet that did decent weekend business.
Reign parked two blocks away and walked up, hands in his hoodie pockets, moving through the small crowd of neighbors and late-night stragglers who'd come out to see what happened.
He spotted Sevyn first—his brother was standing at the edge of the tape, arms crossed, jaw tight, eyes glowing faintly in the darkness.
That glow meant Sevyn was barely holding it together.
Soleil was next to him, phone to her ear, her expression unreadable. She saw Reign approaching and ended the call.
"Took you long enough," she said.
"I was handling something. What we looking at?"
Sevyn turned to face him, and Reign saw the rage simmering just beneath his brother's surface. "Go see for yourself."
Reign ducked under the tape, ignoring the cop who started to say something until he saw Reign's face and thought better of it. The Saint family had enough people on payroll that moving through crime scenes wasn't hard.
The body was at the far end of the alley, slumped against a dumpster.
Reign recognized him immediately.
Kove.
Twenty-two years old. Worked security at After Dark on weekends. Half-vampire, part of the extended crew. Good kid. Loyal. Kept his head down and did his job.
Now he was dead.
Completely drained.
His skin was gray, eyes open and glassy, mouth slack. Two puncture wounds on his neck, clean and deliberate. But it wasn't just the feeding—his chest had been carved open, ribs exposed, heart missing.
A message.
Reign crouched down, his jaw clenching so hard his teeth ached. He could smell the death, the old blood, the faint trace of whoever had done this. The scent was familiar in the worst way.
Noctis's crew.
"They took his heart," Sevyn said from behind him, his voice shaking with barely-contained fury. "Left him out here like trash. Like he ain't mean nothing."
Reign stood slowly, his hands curling into fists. "When?"
"Couple hours ago," Soleil said, stepping into the alley. "Coroner say between midnight and two. They wanted us to find him like this. Wanted to send a message."
"Message received." Reign's voice was flat, cold. "Where Cairo at?"
"Smoke & Gold. He waiting on you."
Reign took one last look at Kove's body, committing the image to memory. This wasn't just business anymore. This was personal.
He turned and walked out of the alley without another word.